News from the Peterhouse Perne and Ward Libraries
Cast one's eye towards the History class-lists for 1959 and several names leap out amongst those select seventeen who achieved first-class honours in Part II of the Tripos. Mark Elvin traded King's for Glasgow University, St Anthony's College Oxford and, latterly, the Australian National University, where he is emeritus professor in Chinese history. Fellow King’s... Continue Reading →
In late 2019, the Ward Library was contacted by sisters, Nicole Swengley and Kristian Perry, asking if we would be interested in receiving three largely-handwritten music books, dating from the 1860s onwards, that had belonged to their great-grandmother, Hilda Routh, (née Airy). The books offered a fascinating insight into Hilda’s interests and, after meeting with... Continue Reading →
Though not one of the more prominent United Nation’s annual observances, since 2014 the fifth of December has marked the day on which the world comes together to recognise the “importance of healthy soil and to advocate for the sustainable management of soil resources” (https://www.un.org/en/observances/world-soil-day). December thus seems an opportune moment to reflect on a... Continue Reading →
Ward Library, Peterhouse. 8 November to 13 December 2021 Curated by Scott Mandelbrote This exhibition considers Gray’s life and work from the perspective of the holdings of the two Cambridge Colleges with which he was associated from 1734, when he entered Peterhouse, until his death, which occurred shortly after he was taken ill at dinner... Continue Reading →
Sir Henry Wotton’s The Elements of Architecture The first page of the preface, at the top of which Wren Sr. records his thanks to Wotton: "To the Honor of the Author & his gift Chr. Wren subscribes his thankful memorial". This short book, a compilation of architectural theory, was a gift to Christopher Wren Sr.... Continue Reading →
Syed Mohammad Hadi (m. 1921) [PET.PHOTO.1.5(56)] With the eyes of the world eagerly trained on Tokyo and the successes and setbacks of the globe's most accomplished athletes, it seems an appropriate moment to celebrate one of Peterhouse's very own true sporting greats – and an Olympian to boot. It is almost exactly one hundred years... Continue Reading →
In summer 2018, we installed three bronzes in the Ward Library by the American-Italian sculptor Raimondo Puccinelli (1904-1986; for further details, see his autobiography: https://www.deutsches-tanzarchiv.de/archiv/nachlaesse-sammlungen/p/raymond-raimondo-puccinelli/fragmentarischer-autobiographischer-text). The bronzes were donated by Hans-Jörg Modlmayr (Pet. m.1964) and Hildegard Modlmayr-Heimath, who had earlier donated three larger bronzes by Puccinelli which now stand in the Scholars' Garden. The bronzes... Continue Reading →
At the end of January, the United Kingdom left the European Union. To mark this event, the Ward Library has been supplementing its collection of the writings of Mark Fitzgeorge-Parker (1954-2014), a Petrean who reinvented himself as the racing novelist ‘Mark Daniel’. ‘A sensualist… and compulsive writer, cook, scholar and lover’, Mark wrote ’37 published... Continue Reading →
On 30 May 1758 a twelve-year-old girl sat down with her grandmother to embark on an Educational Exercise: composing an ‘extract’ of the English portion of Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, probably the second edition of 1587 a copy of which survives in the library where they were staying, which was Windsor Castle.... Continue Reading →
Pooh, notoriously, ate the honey in the pot. Archivists and librarians also take things out of pots, but the literature so far surveyed records no incidence of their consuming the contents. They remove the contents of pots, rather, for their better conservation. The pots, however, are not uninteresting, and far too often they have been... Continue Reading →
The Perne & Ward Libraries 